Hosea 13:14

"I will ransom them from the power of Sheol; I will redeem them from death: O death, where are thy plagues? O Sheol, where is thy destruction? repentance shall be hid from mine eyes."

Many have tried to pervert this precious promise into a threat of destruction by the rendition of it as an interrogative instead of a declaration; but we are compelled to reject this. The apostle Paul viewed the passage as a promise and quoted it in 1 Corinthians 15:55; and thus inspiration from God provides the true meaning of it.

What upsets the commentators is the totally unexpected appearance of a blessed promise like this in the midst of the most severe denunciations to be found in the whole Bible; but the setting is this: God had promised that through Israel "all the familes of the earth" should be blessed, and Hosea had been charged with the task of revealing God's purpose of rejection and destruction of the very Israel through whom the blessing of all men was promised to be conveyed! Did that mean that the hope of human salvation was lost? Indeed no! The ultimate victory of God, upon behalf of men, over the consequences of sin would yet be achieved. "I will ransom them!" thundered from the throne of God as the answer for any doubt. God was not being defeated in the apostasy of Israel; it was Israel that was being defeated. God would yet achieve his purpose through the righteous remnant which would remain, and particularly through the True Israel, even Jesus Christ our Lord! How appropriately, therefore, do the words of this sublime promise shine like a blazing lamp in the midnight darkness of Israel's wretched apostasy.

It is a fact that, "Modern scholarship is virtually unanimous in taking this verse as a threat. God is summoning up the plagues of death to punish his recalcitrant people."[27] Despite this, we are certain that the scholars are wrong here because they are blind to the crying need for just such a promise in this exact place. They are looking only at Israel; but God's purpose in Israel has always been a redemption planned for all men, and not for Jews only. Most of the so-called "modern translations" follow the lead of the scholars in perverting this blessed promise; and in this particular, they become not "translations" in any sense but commentary, and woefully ignorant and inaccurate commentary at that! The apostle Paul could not have used this passage as he did, unless it is a glorious promise. Many of the scholars, even some of them who accept the passage as a threat, have pointed out that there is no genuine authority whatever for their changing the meaning of this verse.

"This verse lacks an interrogative particle!"[28] That simply means that it cannot honestly be translated as a question, thus making it a threat. Of course, those who have already decided what they think Hosea should have said, promptly supply the particle, "eraending the text" as they call it.[29] Such emendations cannot be accepted. Smith tacitly admitted that there is no authority for the change in the first part of the verse but accepted it anyway, basing it upon another false interpretation of the last clause, which he called, "the crux of the interpretation (which) rests in the last clause, `compassion is hid from my eyes.'"[30] But what has happened in that last clause (Hosea 13:14b) is that the scholars have perverted it also in order to bolster their bastard translation of the main promise. Let's take a look at it:

"Repentance shall be hid from mine eyes ..." The clear meaning of that is that God will not repent of his glorious promise. The immutable and eternal God will do what he promised! There is no such thing as God's changing his holy purpose of redeeming a portion of apostate humanity from sin and from the power of the grave.

I will ransom them from the power of Sheol (the grave);

I will redeem them from death!

O death, where are thy pagues?

O Sheol (grave) where is thy destruction?

Repentance shall be hid from mine eyes!

The last clause here should be read, as Keil said, "in accordance with Psalms 89:36; 110:4, where the oath of God is still further strengthened by the words `and will not repent.'"[31] God added this in order to anticipate and remove all doubt that his purpose of "salvation will be irrevocably accomplished."[32] The obvious meaning of this is clear, and that accounts for the perversion of the passage to read: "Compassion is hid from mine eyes." After accepting that rendition, Smith wrote:

"The point seems clear. The Lord will no longer have compassion; there is an end to the patience of God. Consequently, the answer to the two rhetorical questions in verse 14a is no. The Lord will not redeem them from the power of Sheol."[33]

But the word here is "repentance" not compassion." As W. R. Harper pointed out: "The word means neither resentment nor compassion; it is the technical word for repentance."[34] Such a truth nullifies and categorically denies the type of commentary cited immediately above. In the instance of this verse 14, therefore, the modern scholars have gone much too far; and their erroneous perversion should be rejected out of hand.

Now, read this glorious passage again. It pertains to every true believer in every age of the world. It even applied to any righteous remnant that could have remained in old Israel. What an unspeakable tragedy it would have been for God to have left this verse out. Don't let the so-called scholars take it away from you.

Still another gross error easily fastens itself upon this passage, and that is to apply it to a restoration of secular Israel, Ephraim in particular. Speaking of most modern scholars, Ward said, "Several of them (Robinson, Weiser, and Knight) interpret it as a promise of new life to Ephraim."[35] Such a view could be correct only in so far as it is restricted to any righteous remnant that might have remained in Israel after the punishments announced by the prophet Hosea. There is certainly nothing in this that promises God's resurrecting the evil old state and monarchy of apostate Israel. That thing went down to everlasting death in the pre-Christian era; nor is anything promised in the current dispensation of God's grace that assures any such thing even in the remote future.